Obsessive Consumption

If debt-diet guru Suze Orman and entrepreneurial queen Martha Stewart had a love child, it would be Kate Bingaman-Burt.

In her current installation, Obsessive Consumption, at Fraction Workspace her debt consumes two large storefront windows. Steps from trendy shops and restaurants of Wicker Park, Bingaman-Burt’s hand-drawn credit card statements fill a space reserved for stylish mannequins selling expensive clothing a few blocks away. This public art space has two looming oversized statements from Chase and Target hanging in the window, and below are two pillows screen-printed in credit card logos with a bed of smaller credit card bills. Bright pink painted bling and dollar signs cover the walls and hand-made pennant flags are strung across the window. It’s bright, gaudy and loud, but somehow being in debt has never looked nicer.

Obsessive Consumption is Bingaman-Burt’s ongoing project chronicling her love/hate relationship with debt and all the things related, including shopping, credit cards, celebrity, marketing and advertising. As a graduate student at University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2002, she began documenting all of her purchases and created her own brand to package and promote the process. This brand became Obsessive Consumption. While the documentation of every purchase ended on April 22, 2004, Bingaman-Burt continues Obsessive Consumption with various other works.

The project has two parts now, as exhibitions like the one at Fraction Workspace and as an online store at obsessiveconsumption.com. At the online store, people can purchase everything from stuffed dollar sign pillows to a $4 zine of her daily purchase drawings. She also sells her credit card statement drawings, each cleverly priced as their minimum balance due. The store is filled with stuff. On her website she says, “I like STUFF and I like to make STUFF and I like to take pictures of where I make STUFF and where my STUFF resides.” The same kind of stuff people needlessly buy is in her store.

This particular exhibition of her work highlights her most recent endeavor in hand-drawing each of her four credit card statements each month. She began with six cards, but has since paid off two. She plans to continue drawing them every month until they are paid off. At around $13,500 of debt, she is about halfway towards her goal, coming from nearly $26,000 in credit card debt just three years ago. Her drawings give life and a human touch to a document that is typically never handled by a person until it reaches the post office. They show a slowed down process to a document that is usually treated without any care or consideration.

Other works include her daily drawings, where she draws one item she buys everyday. These are available to purchase individually, but she also sells a sleekly packaged zine of them at the exhibition. The drawings show her everyday purchases in a quickly drawn style that seems to reflect the compulsive nature of consumption. They feature items like a copy of Teen Vogue’s prom edition, to which Bingaman-Burt points out that has been neither teen nor going to prom in over 10 years. With very few items over $10, they seem to be mostly impulse buys, the type of things you’d find at checkout counters.

This was very surprising after seeing thousands of dollars of credit card debt. In a recent interview, Bingaman-Burt commented on the subject, “I almost think that some are disappointed when they realize that I don't spend my paycheck on pixie sticks and carnival cruises. My consumption is boring. Your consumption is boring.” However, Obsessive Consumption doesn’t come across as boring, it comes off full of energy. The saturated colors, the flags, the giant diamonds, giant credit card statements bombard the viewer with the urge to shop. The walls say, “What did you buy today?” assuming that everyone has bought something already. If you haven’t bought anything today, then you’re obviously missing out. They also seem to mimic McDonald’s old slogan, “Have you had your break today?” These slogans urge people to buy and consume.

In her statement, Bingaman-Burt says, “Obsessive Consumption is about making the mundane special,” which is obvious in her work. The credit cards become special because Bingaman-Burt takes the time to meticulously recreate them. It’s as if she took the time to draw a portrait for each item for her daily purchase drawings, and now they will exist longer than a fast food sandwich or pair of shoes ever could.

In her statement she also explains that she’s interested in the grotesque irony that revolves around consumption. She’s simultaneously repulsed and fascinated with consumer culture. Her website states that, “(Obsessive Consumption) wants to eat the entire bag of candy and enjoy the sickness that it feels and hour later.” However, her own consumption is boring, like she said. She leads a rather frugal lifestyle without a lot of flashy items. Her sunglasses are from Walgreens, not Barneys. She eats at Wendy’s, not Spiaggia. In the world of consumers, she probably has some of the least repulsive spending habits. She drew her receipts for the week of April 8, 2007 for the show, and only accumulated 16 receipts. That’s what many people have for just two days. Instead of being a display of excessive spending, it becomes an excessive display of modest spending. But even the bright colors, bold writing and flags aren’t enough to be repulsive; it just makes people want to spend more. It doesn’t seem excessive, because this bombardment is so everyday. Rather, the repulsion comes from the sudden realization that all the debt is from the accumulation of mundane purchases.

What becomes even more interesting is her intense guilt over her spending habits. This becomes a display of the complex emotions that occur with spending and debt. In her statement she explains, “I do this as penance for my sins.” Though she no longer spends money on credit, she still feels guilt over the smallest purchases. The caption of a daily purchase drawing of sunglasses reads, “I have a problem,” since she already owns a few pairs of sunglasses. If owning multiple pairs of inexpensive sunglasses is a problem, then it’s hard to imagine what really excessive spenders feel. On May 10, 2007 she treats herself to a pedicure and the caption says, “end of the school year pedicure. Shhh... I have never ever had one before.” She seems to feel bad over many of her purchases.

This project seems to become less about a critique of everyone’s obsessive consumption, and more focused on her obsession with her own consumption. Either way it gauges interest on many levels, and drives the viewer to think about how and why we consume.